India's Election Commission Wednesday set in motion the process to elect the country's next president as it issued a notice on filing of nominations for the contest due next month. The last date of filing nomination is June 28. Scrutiny of nomination will be held on June 29 and the last date for withdrawal of nomination is July 1. The voting is scheduled for July 17 and the results are expected on July 20.

Reports say that the BJP led NDA and opposition parties are making efforts to agree on a "mutually acceptable" presidential candidate but would go different ways if the consensus proves ambiguous. He has previously contested against top political leaders including J. Jayalalithaa, M. Karunanidhi, A.K. Anthony, P.V. Narasimha Rao, K.R. Narayanan, Manmohan Singh (in Rajya Sabha polls) and President Pranab Mukherjee in the presidential election. On the other hand, Opposition parties held preliminary discussions on the issue but made a decision to meet again for detailed parleys after the government makes public its choice of candidate. President Pranab Mukherjee's term comes to an end on July 24. Chosen individuals from the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha and chose individuals from state administrative congregations are the electors.

On Wednesday, Opposition leaders from 17 parties, including the Congress, CPM, CPI, TMC, RJD, JDU met in Delhi to select a common candidate for the presidential poll.

He said the NDA at present had 54 percent of the total votes in its favour and suggested more parties were "ready to cooperate" with the BJP, taking the tally of votes to 65 percent. They would meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday.

The names of former West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi and former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar are doing the rounds.